


old reruns (play it back)

by retrou



Category: EXO (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Angst, First Love, Friendship, High School, Jeon Jungkook & Kim Taehyung | V are Childhood Friends, M/M, Office, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:48:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25681546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/retrou/pseuds/retrou
Summary: That year was the year of reruns. Bootcut jeans were coming back into fashion. Super Junior was celebrating their 10-year anniversary. His mom was moving back to the countryside, because she couldn’t deal with having to drive 50 minutes for a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated by cigarette smoke and billboard lights. And Jungkook sees his first love from 7th grade and thinks to himself—“Wow. You seriously have not changed a bit.”(aka. Taehyung is Jungkook’s first love from high school, they reunite in the year of throwbacks.)
Relationships: Jeon Jungkook/Kim Taehyung | V
Kudos: 10





	old reruns (play it back)

That year was the year of reruns. Bootcut jeans were coming back into fashion. Super Junior was celebrating their 10-year anniversary. His mom was moving back to the countryside, because she couldn’t deal with having to drive 50 minutes for a breath of air that wasn’t contaminated by cigarette smoke and billboard lights. And Jungkook sees his first love from 7th grade and thinks to himself—

  
“Wow. You seriously have not changed a bit.”

  
He hasn’t. Kim Taehyung still has that same square smile, the boyish lankiness, the oversized t-shirts, and he still offers his half-sucked lollipop as a makeshift handshake.

  
“It’s watermelon.”

  
He squints. “Are you—”

  
“I meant fruit punch. Hey, Jungkookie.”

  
“Okay, now reorder all of that.”

  
When Taehyung says he’s treating him to dinner, it means ramen at the convenience store and banana milk. It means that he burns his tongue, because he’s always been too impatient for his own good, and it means washing down his entire banana milk before getting a proper bite in.

  
“So what do you do nowadays?” he asks.

  
“I’m an office worker,” Jungkook replies.

  
“You must work long hours,” he remarks through a big bite, blowing out the steam, feet dribbling beneath the counter.

  
“I mean. I guess so.”

  
Jungkook loosens his tie and takes his first bite.

  
“Do you like the noodles more bloated?” Taehyung asks.

  
He nods.

  
“So what do you do?” Jungkook asks back.

  
“Me? Oh, I’m an actor.”

  
“Oh really? Oh yeah, I think I remember you taking lessons at a hakwon afterschool.”

  
“Yeah. Actually, I just made my debut with my first drama a couple months ago. It had peak 20% viewership ratings.”

  
Jungkook snorts.

  
“No, really.”

  
“Oh…,” he begins, scratching his head. He isn’t sure what to feel, or how to express it. “Congratulations.”

  
Taehyung blinks, then bursts into laughter.

. . .

  


A couple nights later, as he’s sorting through some of the things at his mom’s place, he comes across a scrapbook. Here is Kim Seokjin, the smartass that nobody really liked but that everybody always forgave because he was good looking. Park Jimin, his best friend, making a soccer goal during PE. A few pages down is a picture of a field trip to Busan, when they were learning about ocean ecosystems, getting sand stuck in their sneakers, the scent of saltwater in their hair, name tags flashing beneath the sun.

  
Here is the one picture that he has with Taehyung. Their teacher had taken it without them noticing. It really didn’t mean much. They happened to be walking past each other in the hallway. The sun happened to be setting outside, crashing into the field, shattering in shards between the leaves of the trees. Taehyung was waving at someone, but it wasn’t Jungkook.

  
“Guk-ah! Are you done in there? I also need you to look through some of the stuff in the living room!”

  
Jungkook grabs his wallet and stuffs the picture inside.

  
“Yeah! Coming!”

  
He leaves the bedroom. The rest of the day is spent going through old memos, packing things into beige boxes, packing in the memories along with it.

  
“Eomma, I met a high school friend the other day.”

  
“Oh really?” she replies. “Who? Do I know them?”

  
“Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.”

His mom forces a brightened expression, like she wants him to think that she remembers, but she really can’t.

  
“Oh, that’s right. He was a good kid. How is he doing?”

  
“He’s an actor. He made his debut in a drama recently. He said it got high viewer ratings.”

  
“Really? Good for him. You two should catch up more often. You’ve been so busy with work that I hardly hear about your other friends.”

. . .

  


On a nondescript Thursday afternoon, his phone buzzes in his pocket. Thursdays are supposed to be bland. Thursday nights are laundry days, are happy hour buy-one-get-one-half-off deals at the chicken place two blocks from his apartment. Thursdays are sitting in front of his desk, trying not to get strangled by his tie, trying not to strangle Team Manager Min Yoongi.

  
“Buy me cigarettes,” Yoongi grunts, flinging a couple bills on his desk.

  
“But cigarettes are bad for you.”

  
“Yeah? You know what else is bad for you?” Yoongi shoots back, eyes thinning into little slits. Is it a glare? Is it Yoongi’s chronic headache? Is it his dry contacts? Jungkook can never guess right. “Getting fired as an intern at your first company. By the person who hired you.”

  
Jungkook never guesses right, but Yoongi is always in the right. So he throws a jacket on and hops into the elevator. He sees fellow intern Oh Sehun inside, a little stickly skeleton that looks like he belongs on the cover of Vogue, not in a striped dress shirt, carrying a handbag of iced Americanos and caramel macchiatos in one hand, a clutch of manila folders in the other.

  
“Hang in there, Jeon.”

  
Jungkook cracks a smirk.

  
“I thought Team Manager Joonmyeon was one of the more reasonable ones. I wanted to be put on his team.”

  
“He is. I offered to buy drinks.”

  
Jungkook sighs heavily and voluntarily blinds himself by the elevator lights by throwing his head back. “Seriously. Fuck you.”

  
“That’s not very office-appropriate language to a fellow colleague,” Sehun jokes. The elevator jolts a stop.

  
“Hey, wanna grab lunch together?” Sehun asks, right before he gets off. Jungkook feet shuffle in his shoes.

  
“Maybe tomorrow.”

  
“Alright, see you then.”

  
The doors tremble to a close. He leans against the wall, then remembers his phone buzzing.

  
_unknown number: hey guk_

  
_unknown number: ...this is your number right?_

  
_unknown number: are you on lunch break?_

  
He reaches the bottom floor and slips out quickly, before the swarm of walking tailor-made suits and cigarette smoke enters. He dials the number without thinking. It rings once, twice. Jungkook breaks out of the revolving doors and into the streets.

  
“Hello?” comes his voice.

  
“Taehyung-hyung?”

  
“Yeah, it’s me. I’m glad I got the right number.”

  
“Who did you get my number from?”

  
“I was going to tell you. Remember Kim Namjoon?”

  
“Namjoon-hyung?”

  
“Yeah. He’s apparently a music producer for an OST that was in my drama. I got in touch with him through my manager. Weird, huh? How everything’s coming back around.”

  
“Yeah. I haven’t spoken to Namjoon-hyung in a while.”

  
“He said he had your number because you used him as a reference for your job.”

  
“That’s right.”

  
“So where are you at right now?” Taehyung asks. “Are you out right now? Shit, am I interrupting your lunch plans?

  
Jungkook looks around before crossing the street. “No, you’re good, hyung. I’m out buying some stuff for my boss.”

  
“Ah. Well, I won’t keep you long. I have to memorize my lines. But we should get lunch, sometime. The three of us. It’ll be my treat. I make a lot of money, you know.”

  
His fingers tighten.

  
“Guk?”

  
“Yeah, hyung. We should.”

  


. . .

  


Jungkook dials the number again two nights later, and again, it’s before he can even stop his fingers.

  
“I saw you on television today,” he says. He’s on his couch, half-asleep, and he can feel the visceral weariness in the soles of his feet, but he doesn’t need to feel anything other than the voice through the phone.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize how famous you were.”

Laughter. “Do you do anything other than go to work?”

“...not really.”

“Yeah. It seemed that way. You should make more friends. You never really talked to anyone except for me in high school, too."

_Because nobody ever really got me like you did._

  
“What were you doing there?” he asks instead.

  
“I shrunk myself and snuck into your apartment.”

  
“TV’s are skinny nowadays. You’d have to shrink yourself a lot.”

“I have my ways.”

  
“You always did,” Jungkook mumbles.

  
“What?

“Nothing. It’s 4am. What are you still doing up?”

  
“I don’t sleep much. I could ask you the same, though.”

  
“I’m binge-watching your drama.”

  
Taehyung _giggles_. Jungkook sucks in a breath. Taehyung exhales. Or is it static? He can’t tell

.  
“You did really well,” Jungkook says quietly.

  
“...thank you.”

  


. . .

  


Sehun grins and waves him down. Jungkook already begins to regret meeting him, but it’s too late to back out.

  
“I thought you said tomorrow. Why did it take two weeks for us to finally get lunch?” Sehun bombards him, then transitions fluidly into ordering chicken when the waitress comes around as if it were one conversation instead of two. Jungkook cracks his knuckles, shifts his neck from side to side.

  
“You were really the last thing on my mind.”

Sehun rolls his eyes.

“You really need to find a new character concept. Tsundere is so lame.”

  
“Learnt it from my team manager,” he replies, popping a pickled radish into his mouth.

  
At that, Sehun bursts into laughter. Jungkook cracks a smile. They cheers to soft drinks—Coke for Jungkook, Sprite for Sehun—and to their thirty minutes of freedom.

  
“So what’s up?” Sehun asks, like Jungkook was the one who asked him out to lunch.

  
“Not much. Just working.”

  
Sehun rolls his eyes. “Other than working, dumbass.”

  
“I helped my mom move back to Busan.”

  
Sehun sighs, rubbing his temples. “I might as well be talking to Siri.”

  
“There’s just nothing interesting happening in my life recently.”

  
“Don’t you watch dramas or anything? Oh, I started watching a really good one the other day. I cried so hard.”

  
Jungkook wonders if it could have been Taehyung’s drama, but he doesn’t ask. If he did, it would be the same as admitting how much Taehyung was once again making an impact on his life, his friendships. And he’d already made that mistake. Some things didn’t need reruns. 

_(or he's refusing to admit that everything that's been happening is just that: a rerun)_

  
“I feel like you cry at anything,” Jungkook bites back instead.

  
“Crying is a necessary part of life, Jungkook-ah. You need to cry. You need a good, big cry. That’s what people like you need.”

  
“Whatever. Eat your chicken.”

  
Sehun suddenly props his elbows on the table and grins wide at him. It takes Jungkook aback for a second, because he swore he’d seen that smile on a different face once before, many years ago.

  
“Hey, Jeonggu—”

  
“No.”

  
“Are we friends now?”

  
Jungkook’s stomach twists, and he can’t hear what he says, but he thinks he probably did a pretty good job of hiding his discomfort, because Sehun laughs.

  
He doesn’t talk to Sehun for a while.

  


. . .

  


Taehyung is the one that orchestrates the whole thing; in other words, he doesn’t orchestrate anything at all. Taehyung asks for Jungkook’s address, picks him up on a Saturday, and drives straight to Namjoon’s place. The apartment is very Namjoon. It’s expensive, organized chaos. It’s what Jungkook imagines the inside of Namjoon’s brain would look like, if it were furnished with an army of Ryan plushies.

  
“Seriously, Tae, what the fu—”

“We brought food, hyung! Because I know you have nothing in your fridge but cold brew and dark chocolate!”

  
Namjoon has just woken up, and it’s evident in the hair. He tells them he’ll go to the bathroom and join them in the living room. Namjoon’s somehow not quite as mad as Jungkook would have expected. They unpack the tteokbokki and begin eating in front of his massive TV, but Jungkook’s eyes are fixed on the view of the Han River.

  
“So how did you two keep in touch?” Taehyung asks, mixing in the cheese. “I don’t remember you two being particularly close in high school.”

  
“We went to the same university and both joined the same music club,” Namjoon intercepts, coming back out in a fresh change of clothes, hair matted down half-heartedly with water.

  
Taehyung sputters, looking at Jungkook with wide eyes. “Guk, you went to Seoul U?”

  
“You don’t have to sound so surprised,” Jungkook mutters, sipping down on his cup of peach Coolpis.

  
“It’s just...I don’t have any memories of you studying hard. You were always either playing sports or sleeping during class.”

  
Jungkook shuffles the ice in his cup.

  
“And all I remember you doing is making your eraser into a pig by drawing on it with Sharpie—,” Jungkook begins.

  
“—and unwinding paperclips to make the curly tail? _Damn_ , you seriously have a good memory. No wonder you got into Seoul U.”

  
“Look, I always tried my best when I studied at home, okay?” Jungkook protests.

  
“So you wanted to be pretentious?”

  
“No—”

  
“It’s okay, Jungkookie. I get it. We all care about what the girls think in high school.”

  
Jungkook opens his mouth to say something but thinks better of it, because Taehyung has that mischievous glint in his eyes that tells him he’ll turn the tables on anything Jungkook has to shoot back.

  
“The thing with you two is,” Namjoon begins, sighing, shoving a big piece of glass noodle in his mouth. “Is that there is nothing.”

  
Taehyung sinks further into the couch and wriggles his toes in the rectangle of sunlight coming through the curtains. He yawns wide.

  
“If you were to record every conversation you two had, you would realize that the outcome of the conversation is 100% nothing. There is no point to any conversation that you two have. It’s incredible.”

  
“Hi, my name is Kim Namjoon, I came out top of my class at Seoul U, and I like to microanalyze the _shit_ out of everything.”

  
Jungkook gets a kick out of that. And Taehyung gets a literal kick.

  


. . .

  


It’s another Thursday, and Jungkook’s sitting at the laundromat, moving his clothes into the dryer. He looks around his bag to see if there are any coins he can use up, when a familiar photo slips out. He hurriedly starts the dryer before sitting back on the bench, rubbing his finger across the photo.

  
_Alright, settle down, settle down, everybody. I have an announcement to make before we start class. As you all probably have noticed, Taehyung hasn’t been coming to school. For confidentiality reasons, I can’t tell you why, but I wanted to bring it up and out into the open that he’s dropped out and won’t be returning. I know this is very abrupt, but if you have anything..._

  
If you asked Jungkook when his work addiction began, he’d say it began in high school. It began the day the seat next to him stayed empty for one day, then two days, then for the rest of the school year. When all he got as a goodbye was an eraser pig, tucked into the corner of his locker.

  


. . .

  


Jungkook’s head is pounding and the world looks like his vomit, like Van Gogh paintings on the sidewalk, and he’s crying. The world really does come around, because he feels as overstimulated as a newborn baby.

  
“Woah. Woah, Jungkook-ah.”

  
A painful throb behind every syllable, metronomic bass in throbbing arteries. He looks up. This human-shaped portion of the Van Gogh painting is really, really beautiful. It makes Jungkook want to throw up again, but instead, he reaches out for the walking Van Gogh’s shoulders and stabilizes himself.

  
“Who are you?” he slurs. “No matter how pretty you are, you have to use honorifics. Jungkook-ah NO. Jungkook _-ssi_. Jungkook _-nim_. Jungkook- _hyu —_”

  
Deep laughter. Oh, that feels a lot nicer on his head, like a cold compress.

  
“I’m pretty sure I’m your hyung, Guk.”

  
Jungkook’s vision stops tilting for a split second.

  
“Taetae...hyung?”

  
He doesn’t even remember the nickname, how it made him feel all those years ago, until he says it aloud.

  
“Yeah, it’s me,” Taehyung says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. “I was hoping I’d catch you around the convenience store, but I didn’t think I’d catch you hammered.”

  
And then everything from then on is a series of snapshots: taxi seats, blue hair (?), jolting elevators, white walls, all stabilized by the cool feeling of Taehyung’s hands through his white dress-shirt. Before he knew it, he was in bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling Taehyung’s hands running through his hair.

  
“Why’d you leave hyung?” he whispers.

  
There isn’t a response.

  
“Why did you never eat lunch?”

  
No response.

  
“Eraser pigs aren’t good enough for a goodbye.”

  
Laughter.

  


. . .

  


The next morning, Taehyung still hasn’t left his house. He’s in the kitchen, shaking his hips to some Girls Generation songs. Taehyung doesn’t look right in the kitchen, with the recess lights that sometimes flicker offbeat, with the tiles that have permanent kimchi stains. But he seems happy there. When he sees that Jungkook’s up, he seems even happier, bounding up to him like an overgrown puppy in a Chanel sweater.

  
“Good morning? Do you want me to make you breakfast?”

  
“No, it’s okay.”

  
“So...can I live here?” Taehyung asks.

“Did you even sleep last night, hyung?” Jungkook asks, eyes narrowing, head pounding.

  
“I usually take something because I have a hard time sleeping,” Taehyung whistles. Jungkook would process it a bit more, but the pounding is turning into a sharp throbbing. “So anyways, can I move in here?”

“No.”

“You say ‘no’ too much,” he objects.

He rubs his temples. “You’ve _denied_ every one I’ve given you. I see no reason to quit trying to shove it down your throat.”

  
He puts his hands up in surrender, side-stepping as Jungkook makes his way to his kitchen. Taehyung follows him like a lost ghost, takes a spot on the kitchen counter, and swings his legs, looking around as he prepares coffee. He spends 5 minutes finding his coffee filters, 5 to find a suitable mug, and another 10 to boil the water.

  
“You don’t stay here often, do you?” Taehyung asks in amusement. “Even though it’s your apartment.”

  
He doesn’t respond.

  
“Right there,” Taehyung begins, framing everything in snapshots with his pointer fingers and thumbs. Nothing good comes when he uses that tone. He’s looking directly at a small coffee table by the sofa. “A vase of flowers. And there, above it, a modern painting. White curtains; a wooden desk; something green and leafy over there.”

  
“Who’s paying for all of those things?” Jungkook mutters, not bothering to turn around.

  
“You.”

  
Jungkook scoffs. “And who’s going to keep ‘something green and leafy’ alive?”

  
“Me.”

  
“You?”

  
Now Jungkook turns, raising his eyebrows. Taehyung grins.

  
“I like this place.”

  
“Why? I’m sure your place is much better. I should move into your place.”

  
“You could if you wanted to. It’s really nice. I’ll show you around one day.

”  
Jungkook hates him at that moment, because he doesn’t sound like he’s joking at all.

  
“Guk, drink water before you drink coffee. You’re still hungover.”

  
“Sorry about yesterday night, hyung.”

  
“It’s okay.”

  
“Somebody confessed to me at work,” he tests quietly. “His name is Oh Sehun. A coworker of mine.”

  
The idyllic morning is instantly shattered. Jungkook’s not sure it was idyllic from the start, but he was convinced that it should have been. This is what he’s wanted all along, to make coffee in the morning, with Taehyung at his side, talking about how their week was, what groceries they needed to stock up on, arguing about which detergent to use. But instead, Jungkook just feels like a bad actor stuck in a drama set, reading the lines to a script that leads to all the bad endings.  
“Oh…” Taehyung replies slowly. “That’s good...or no?”

  
Jungkook watches the coffee drip down the filter. Taehyung’s a good actor, but not good enough.

  
“If he’s not the one, you should find someone that is. You know. The one.”

  
Jungkook swallows heavily. “Yeah.”

  


. . .

  


It’s New Year’s eve. Taehyung should be at some party, at some awards show, at something, not Jungkook’s living room, peeling tangerines, drinking soju, watching old episodes of Running Man.

  
“You looked ridiculous the other day, during the red carpet,” Jungkook remarks, lying on his back.

  
“Oh yeah?”

  
“You looked like a peacock on steroids, wearing The Rock’s leather jacket,” Jungkook says.

  
“I liked it, though,” Taehyung protests.

  
“Your hair looked good,” Jungkook amends.

  
Taehyung hums.

  
“Can we turn the heater on?”

  
“Sure.”

  
A synthetic hum synths through the room.

  
“Hyung.”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“I loved you. You know that, right?”

  
Jungkook shifts so he can see Taehyung’s face, even though he’s scared out of his mind. When he sees his face, though, he can’t make anything out of it. It’s like all the parts of Taehyung’s face dissociated, so that the eyes, nose, lips, cheeks, forehead—everything just separate.

  
“I think I knew,” he replies, just a whisper.

. . .

  


Taehyung goes off the radar for a couple weeks. Jungkook texts once and then can’t sacrifice his pride to send another, so he lets it keep him up perpetually. So he tries to forget about the absence, forgets about worrying whether it’s permanent or not, by overworking himself until late hours, until he’s so tired that he can’t do anything but sleep at home.

  
He goes home at 9pm, and sees a plant outside his door. He bends down. There’s a tag stuck to it.

  
_Hey, Guk. Sorry I went MIA. Here’s my apology._

  
He immediately calls Taehyung.

  
“Jeon—”

  
“You said you’d take care of it. You’d take care of the green and leafy thing.”

  
A beat of silence.

  
“Yeah, I did.”

  
“If you don’t, you’re a liar and a murderer and you’ll go to hell.”

  
Taehyung laughs. It sounds grouchy, like he’s just woken up.

  
“Where are you?”

  
“LA.”

  
“Wow. That’s far.”

  
“It is. I’ll call you later, Guk, okay? I promise. I’m just really tired right now.”

  
Jungkook wants to tell him that it won’t be a good time for him later. It’s 9pm. He’s been working since 6am. He should be deep asleep by then. He has an important meeting with Yoongi and members from the finance team tomorrow at 8am, and tonight, he really needs some good sleep.

  
“Okay.”

  


. . .

  


Jungkook opens the door to Taehyung’s penthouse and grins to himself, carrying the cake to the kitchen. The lights are still on.

  
“I’m glad you’re still up. I had a feeling you’d still be—”

  
Taehyung’s curled over the sink, throwing up his lunch, his dinner, his liver, probably a part of his soul along with it. Jungkook drops the cake and runs to his side. In the middle of the sink, six white pills. He grabs the bottle.

  
“I thought these were just to help you sleep,” Jungkook says shakily. The blood drains from his knuckles, to the same ashy white of the pills.

  
“They are,” Taehyung spits.

  
“You’re not supposed to eat these as a _meal_ , hyung. What is this, melatonin cereal?”

  
“Stop—”

  
“What is going on with your eyes?” he asked, throwing the bottle on the floor. “W-What is this? How many of these have you already taken?”

  
Taehyung wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Jungkook falters and takes a step backwards, because Taehyung looks like a completely different person. He was wrong, the first time they reunited. Taehyung couldn’t have been further from the person he was in high school. Those eyes. How did he not notice?

“I didn’t sleep that night in LA, Guk. It was 5am, and I couldn’t fall asleep. I couldn’t fall asleep for _nights_.”

  
Jungkook can’t push away. It wouldn’t be right. He wraps his arms around Taehyung’s waist. Was it always this thin? He puts his forehead against Taehyung’s shoulder and squeezes, just a pulse. Taehyung doesn’t move an inch. Stiff, cold. He pats him on the shoulder, but instantly regrets it, because Taehyung cracks a little when he does.

  
“But I did my job. I made money.”

  
Jungkook’s lower lip quivers, whether from anger or from disappointment or some shade in between, he can’t tell. You can’t tell the difference between shades of white. The white of pills is the same as the whites of Taehyung’s eyes is the same as the white frosting of the birthday cake.

  
“Happy birthday, hyung.”

  
Jungkook walks like a corpse out the door. He doesn’t scream until he’s at home.

  


…

  


Yoongi calls him into the office. He points to the seat. He takes the seat.

  
“Listen, kid. I’ll keep it short, because you look like you just accidentally swallowed a big piece of bubblegum and instead of shitting it out, you look like you’ve been trying to rip it out from wherever it is in your intestinal tract.”

  
“O-Okay?”

  
“Your work life isn’t everything. There are other things in your life that are important, but when those other things are interfering with your work life, then you know something’s not right.”

  
“But I’ve done everything on time, manager-nim,” he says.

  
“Exactly.”

  
Jungkook blinks. Yoongi sighs irritably.

  
“You think I don’t notice that you’re here at ass o’clock in the morning and out the door last? Kid, I don’t even give you that much work."

  
“I…” Jungkook’s palms are red from rubbing them against his lap.

  
“Go home. I don’t want you in the office for at least another day. Just looking at you is stressing me out.”

  
He shakily stands to his feet. Everything tilts for a split second before realigning, colors bleeding out of their lines.

  
“Between hyung and dongsaeng, Jungkook-ah,” Yoongi begins.

  
Jungkook’s eyes widen.

  
“There are some things that need to be let go of. Don’t bottle everything up.”

  


…

  


His phone starts buzzing. It’s 4am. Jungkook picks up after the third ring, puts it on speaker and stares at it with bloodshot eyes.

  
“I saw you the other day, Guk.”

  
Drunk. Taehyung’s drunk.

  
“Yeah?”

  
“You were sitting right next to me during my press conference and you were holding a sunflower.”

  
Something squeezes in his chest. It’s beginning to feel familiar. “Hm.”

  
“Fuck, you were really pretty.”

  
The call ends. Jungkook turns his phone off all the way and, as if possessed, puts his phone as far away in his apartment from his bed as possible.

  


. . .

  


Taehyung is waiting in front of his apartment building, bundled up in a big scarf and sunglasses. Jungkook briefly contemplates ignoring him.

  
“Hey, look, I’m sorry. Can I treat you to lunch?” Taehyung asks.

  
The booth at the convenience store is taken so they eat on the chairs outside, even though it’s cold. Taehyung seems to eat faster today, than normal.  
“You’ll get indigestion,” Jungkook says.

  
“Don’t want them to get cold and bloated,” Taehyung shoots back, blowing steam into the air. Jungkook doesn’t need to look down to know his feet are dancing beneath the table. Jungkook slides the banana milk closer to Taehyung, who gives him a grateful smile.

  
When they finish eating, Jungkook walks him to the bus stop.

  
“Don’t you have a manager to drive you home?”

  
“I’m not supposed to be out.”

  
“You’re not supposed to be with me,” Jungkook corrects.

  
Taehyung looks at him with longing. Is it longing? Jungkook always guesses wrong with facial expressions so much he doesn’t bother chasing down the correct answer. Sometimes, seeing the one you want is enough.

  
Taehyung keeps fiddling with a 500 won coin, lacing it between his fingers, rubbing his fingerprint away on the smooth part. Come to think of it, Jungkook hadn’t seen him without makeup after the first time they reunited. Funnily enough, Jungkook thinks to himself, it doesn’t take Chanel bronzer for his cheekbones to sink in, doesn’t take YSL tint for his lips to look raw and bitten, doesn’t take billion dollar suits for him to look so incredibly small and scrawny.

  
“Guk.”

  
Jungkook keeps squinting at the piece of gum stuck to the floor.

  
“Guk—”

  
“ _What_?”

  
The hand that ruffles his hair is cold and stiff. Jungkook’s eyes widen.

  
“Sorry for making you worry all the time. I always call you when it’s convenient for me.”

  
A punch in the gut. The hand can do so many different things. Taehyung’s hands can do a million things more.

  
“Convenient?” Jungkook asks quietly. He feels so, so small. “Convenient as in like a convenience store?”

  
Taehyung scrapes his feet against the bit of snow beneath the bench. Jungkook feels sick. He sets his hands on his knees and stands, sighing white condensation into the air.

“Hyung, stop playing with the coin,” he says angrily, two steps away. “It’ll make your hands smell funny.”

  
“Ah, sorry,” Taehyung says. It’s the second time he’s apologized in the day. Everytime he says it, it means a little less. Jungkook turns sharply on his heels and faces him one more time. Taehyung is looking at the coin in his hand with a smile.

  
“Money does have a way of making your hand smell funny,” he says, laughing. There, he learns that Taehyung doesn’t laugh because he’s happy. He laughs because he doesn’t know what else to do. And while Jungkook stands there, feeling guilty for reasons he can’t explain, the bus pulls up and takes Taehyung away.

  


. . .

  


Jungkook doesn't have to say it out loud, leave white puffs of condensation in the air as evidence, for him to know that things are going down. Things are turning back to the way they were, creaking slowly and with great pain, like old gears going in reverse.

  
After that, Taehyung isn’t far from just a set of a couple trillion pixels on his TV screen, pulsing red blue and green to track beats, until that’s all he really is.  
There is no real Kim Taehyung anymore. Just pulsing pixels on a flatscreen, on Gangnam billboards, on Times Square. Keep compressing, keep compressing, keep—

  
“—it up.”

  
“What?”

  
Jungkook’s hand quivers at his side. He doesn’t know how, but Taehyung’s in his apartment, and he’s curled around the plant by his windowsill, humming some American pop song in that smooth, low voice of his.

  
“Keep it up, hyung. You’ll die.”

  
“Guk what are you talking about? I won the award! And I just fucked a really pretty girl. I think I might ask her out.”

  
Taehyung smells like perfume and sex and alcohol and there are red and blue marks all over his neck and eyeshadow slipping down his cheeks like glittering tears and his hair is pink why the fuck is it pink. Jungkook feels like his tie is strangling him, so he loosens it, but the pressure at his throat is still there. And it takes him a while to realize that it wasn’t the tie. It was never the tie all along.

  
It was—

  
_“ —guk-ah. You need to cry. You need a good, big cry.”_

  
_“There are some things that need to be let go of. Don’t bottle everything up.”_

  
A big sob leaves him. He throws his tie on the ground and shakes his head, letting hot tears stream down his face. His face is ugly. He’s sure of it. It’s all wrinkled and puckered and his cheeks are probably getting blotchy.

  
“You’ll _die_ , hyung! You’re dying! You’re so fucking stupid. I hate you!”

  
“Gukkie, why are you—”

  
“Because you’re a fucking coward,” Jungkook hisses, shaking uncontrollably. Because even now, Taehyung still smiles. “Because one day, in exchange for one more won, ten more won, a billion more won, you’ll take one pill too many and then you’ll be dead. I’ll wake up for work one morning, and I’ll see you on the breaking news. Newcomer Actor Award recipient, Kim Taehyung, found dead in his apartment from a sleeping pill overdose. And then ten days later? Everyone will forget. It’s not worth it. _Hyung...hyu —hyung just—”_

  
Jungkook wrings his hands through his hair and pulls at it in frustration, just to feel some pain that isn’t the ripping in his chest. Ripping out every pent up emotion he’s had. Ripping out every memory of Kim Taehyung. Kim Taehyung. Kim Taehyung.

  
Even in fifth grade, Kim Taehyung never saw him as anything but a human being, who happened to be in a slice of his life, in a slice of his time. This was just an old rerun for him. An old rerun of an old episode.

  


…

The explanation comes from Namjoon, in the form of a text.

  
Taehyung’s family had no money. His mom died of cancer. They just didn’t have enough for proper treatment. He dropped out of school. He did whatever jobs he could. They lost their house for a while. Taehyung lost his smile. He found it when he was streetcasted because they told him he didn’t need to find his smile. He could just make one.

  
So he did.

  
He looked into the camera, he smiled, and the world was infatuated by Kim Taehyung. And in return, Kim Taehyung was infatuated with money.

  


. . .

  


There’s this sort of enormous fear that expands inside of his chest on a Thursday night after work. His hands fumble with the lock and there’s a thousand different swear words chattering out his lips in breathy disbelief. He throws his apartment door open.

  
The windowsill is empty. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this completely unbeta'd, angst mess of a fic!


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